Gilgit-Baltistan Daughter Unites With Her Mother After 45 Years, Proves There Is Still Hope For Peace

Gilgit-Baltistan Daughter Unites With Her Mother After 45 Years, Proves There Is Still Hope For Peace.

No one can really fathom the suffering of separation unless they go through it, but the great India-Pakistan has given birth to plenty of such stories. These painful stories of division, which even veteran authors failed to express, are still thriving in several parts of the country.

One such case is the life of Zaiba.

Zaiba could not visit her place of birth for 45 years even though she has lived only 30 kilometres away from it all this while.

Separated by border and distance, when she eventually managed to make it to her native village of Chalunka on August 29, 2016, she found her 96-year-old mother, Khatibee, paralysed and unable to see anything.

Zaiba’s journey back home was delayed because of a controversial line in the snow that separates the Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan region from the India-administered area of Leh – both once part of the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Chalunka was on Pakistan’s side until December 1971 when the two countries went to war and the Indian army captured the village along with a few other settlements in the area.

Leaving her parents and siblings behind, Zaiba migrated with her husband to Thoqmus – a village 30 kilometres to the west in the Pakistani-controlled territory.

She did not realise that she would have to wait for four and a half decades – and undertake a long cross-border journey of more than 3,000 kilometres – to cover that small distance.

Her story is not different from thousands of people, who were asked to shift to a different land than their’s – losing their homes, families, and lives behind. (Indiatimes)

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